Our Background
Steve M. Ravida,
Managing Partner
Steve M. Ravida is a co-founder and
principal of RE Data Systems, LLC. He directs the
data center operations and the development of new products. He
was the lead architect
behind the RE Data Systems datacenter. The datacenter was
designed to allow almost
infinite growth and scalability, while securing each
client’s data, protecting it from other
clients and the world.
Steve has over 10 years of experience designing enterprise-class
data processing
environments. He has led the design of technical
implementations for numerous
companies, including the US Department of Defense, the US
Department of Energy,
Sentient Aviation Group, WebMD, and many others. He holds many
current
industry certifications, including the CISSP security
certification.
Steve began his professional career at the age of 16 with a
consulting outfit in
Cleveland, OH. Starting as an $8.00/hr intern, he quickly rose
through the ranks to
become the leading engineer and the Chief Systems Architect
for the organization. He
left in 2003 to start instantWorkplace, a company providing
hosting services to the
general marketplace, and to start his own consulting practice.
instantWorkplace grew at
a breakneck place, and was combined with Bluemile Wireless
(another venture partially
owned by Steve at the time) and was renamed Bluemile, Inc.
Bluemile was purchased in
late 2004 by US Wireless Online, and Steve took the
opportunity to leave and focus on
his growing IT consulting practice.
To Steve’s surprise, within 6 weeks of the merger Steve
and Neal had met and the idea
called RE Data Systems was formed. By January, 2005 the
datacenter had been built,
and by April RE Data had its first clients. Steve and Neal
have controlled the growth of
the company, allowing it to grow while maintaining the high
level of quality and service its
clients expect.
Neal A. Rothstein,
Managing Partner
Neal Rothstein is a co-founder and
principal of RE Data Systems LLC. Prior to forming
RE Data Systems with Steve Ravida, Neal operated NARIS
Technology Inc. for 20 Years.
NARIS Technology was founded in 1989 as the first independent
re-seller and consulting
practice for the MRI family of real estate software products.
Neal has a diverse business back ground which includes
accounting, systems design, IT
management and consulting. His early years were spent
working as a controller for a
manufacturing company in Ohio. Following his tenure of three
years as a controller, he
was recruited to join MRI as the chief architect and designer
of their Commercial
Software products division. To that point, MRI was only
providing software and services
to the apartment industry.
Neal’s successes at MRI lead to a steady climb through
the firm until becoming the VP of
Development and Sales. In this capacity he was responsible for
the management of 80
people along with being the primary liaison to their top 20
clients. He worked with some
of the largest syndicators and asset managers in the U.S.
including: Rreef Funds, JMB,
State Teachers of Ohio, VMS, and many others.
As MRI expanded their product offerings to include
“turn-key” solutions, Neal took the
opportunity to open his own business to market and support the
MRI product line. This
was the birth of NARIS Technology Inc. NARIS was very
successful in establishing a
client base throughout the Central U.S. and many of the
earliest clients remain RE Data
clients. The company offered services including; training,
software support,
customization, sales of new products, data conversion and
more.
During his years at NARIS Technology Inc., Neal also wrote
articles and spoke on topics
within the real estate software industry. He had been one of
the key contributors from
MRI to BOMA, IREM and ICSC. In the mid 1990’s MRI
discontinued its practice of having
third parties sell their software. At that point NARIS became
a value-added services firm
for its clients.
In the mid 2000’s the trend toward outsourcing and the
ASP concept began growing in
popularity across all industries. Recognizing this trend, Neal
saw an opportunity to create
a SaaS company to deliver the family of MRI products. This was
the creation of RE Data
Systems. Together with Steve Ravida, Neal began marketing this
new concept to the
existing NARIS Technology Inc. client base. It quickly became
a dynamically expanding
company.